Dreams and Sirens
by vodka straight
Summary: It's four in the morning and all he wants is a bed that isn't empty."


Dreams:   
  
Of better days  
  
Julia could feel the sun shinning on her face; she noticed the reddish tinge of the light.   
  
She reached carefully across the bed with her eyes closed, her hand sliding over the warm covers, reaching through the thick sleepiness of the bed. She reached the person sleeping next to her and her hand spread slowly over his back, rising steadily and slowly with his sleeping breath.   
  
She forgot sometimes how nice it was to see him sleep. Unlike most men, he had a very easy, steady breathing cycle in his sleep, and he never snored. She could hear the heavy exhale every few seconds, but it was quiet and endearing. His hair was messed up. She never saw him like this. He was always home after she was in bed, and often she missed him in the mornings as well. She almost never got both the night before and the morning with her husband. He was always off saving someone, off, doing amazing things that seemed so grand and far away that Julia didn't like to think about them.   
  
Andy's face was turned slightly into the pillow, and the white comforter was bunched up under his chin in a sweetly childlike manner, and Julia smiled. God, she loved him. It was such a good thing to know sometimes. Such an easy thing to know, and so two-dimensional that she never allowed herself to think twice about it. It was just given, just there. He was hers, and she loved him, and he loved her right back, no matter how far away he was.   
  
She laid her head down on the pillow again, close to his face, watching the soft flitting of his eyelids as he traveled through light REM, enjoying what she knew were always vivid dreams.   
  
It was funny. Julia's dreams were never vivid. She could never recall having had them. It was strange for her to imagine Andy, lying right next to her in bed, having these huge, elaborate dreams that he always described to her, and that she was sometimes forced to wake him from when they became too intense. There had been more than one night when she only saw her husband when he twitched or moaned himself out of a nightmare and woke her.   
  
Julia supposed that these intense visions were a testament (or downside) to his brilliance, but when their marriage was young, they too sometimes made her uneasy. It was as though even when sleeping right beside her, her husband was far away. It was like no matter what, he was a thousand miles ahead of her at any moment. The thought made her laugh now. There they were, husband and wife, one asleep calmly and thoughtlessly, and one purging into new depths of the human experience with every passing second.   
  
Julia looked down again and smiled. Now he just seemed calm. He looked so much smoother ... so much younger. Like a pool of still water. No knots of worry, no lines of care. Just the slight ticking of his eyelids.   
  
During the time Julia had dated Andy in college, her more man-bitter girlfriends had called Andy a "pretty-boy". She smiled at the thought. Maybe a little. He was pretty, she thought. There was a big difference between a pretty boy and a pretty-boy. She had always thought that her husband was the earlier. He had such defined features, almost like a Ken doll, she thought with a smile.   
  
She'd heard her husband's face referred to once in a magazine article as "a face of perfect, shinning plastic". She couldn't remember if the connotation had been good or bad, but she didn't really care. She'd learned to pay little attention to the little ego blasters in The Book of Andy. Those people didn't know her husband. Those cocky, sweet-smelling reporters didn't live with him, didn't sleep next to him each night, didn't know the way he breathed in his sleep or the frightening vividness of his dreams. They took a slice out of him that they thought most presentable and presented it. What was so hard about that? Andy did most of that on his own.   
  
No, Julia was the only one. It was only now, though, at times like this, where he lay next to her in the quite light of morning, when she really felt this deep inside her. When she really knew he was hers.   
  
She placed her hand very softly on his hair, his clean, dry, soft hair with nothing in it, not even the effects of a comb. The heat of sleep in winter radiated from him, and his cheeks were an undefined pink, like a child who'd been out in the snow too long.   
  
The hazel eyes opened groggily into hers, and focused with sweet slowness.  
  
"Didn't mean to wake you." Julia said softly.   
  
"S'okay."  
  
"I didn't think you'd be here when I woke up."  
  
"What time is it?" he said softly, not moving.   
  
"About nine. When does your shift start?" she said softly, continuing to stroke his hair.  
  
"Mmm ... A day from two hours ago."  
  
Julia's eyes widened. "Andy ... you took the day?"  
  
"I thought it was about time." He said sleepily. He inched forward and slid his arms around his wife.  
  
There was a moment of calm silence that became quiet comfortable between the two of them over the years.   
  
"I love you Andy." Julia breathed into his hair. She might have sounded slightly heavier than she had hoped, because Andy paused and then looked up at her.   
  
"Are you alright, honey?" he asked sweetly and seriously, gazing into her eyes and trying not to seem groggy. Julia looked up and laughed.   
  
"Of course."  
  
"You just sounded so ..."  
  
"Sincere?"  
  
Andy blushed slightly and sighed. "I don't know. You just woke me up. I love you, too."  
  
She laughed again and put her hand on the top of his head. "Good. Good." She said slowly. He looked confused.  
  
"See, there you go again."   
  
"What?"  
  
"Seeming sincere."  
  
"Oh bah. I am sincere."   
  
"You know what I mean. Weird sincere. Sad sincere."  
  
Julia laughed, but this time with less comfort. Andy frowned.   
  
"What is it?" he asked, propping his head up on his hand in an almost conspiratory fashion. Julia looked down at the bed sheet and smiled.   
  
"Nothing."  
  
"Julia." His voice itself brought her eyes up.   
  
She sighed and looked to the side instead of down. "I miss you Andy. And I can never count on you being here when I wake up--"  
  
"Oh, not this worn out-"  
  
"-so I think about it, Andy. I haven't seen you sleep in months."  
  
Andy looked confused. "What?"   
  
Julia blushed as she listened to the way her words had sounded, but quickly laughed it off. "I haven't seen you sleeping. I haven't seen you asleep for months."  
  
"You watch me sleep?" he asked, feigning perturbed ness.   
  
"When I'm awake before you, or go to sleep after you."  
  
"Oh. I had the impression that you just woke me up."  
  
"Only when I get lonely."  
  
"Mmm."   
  
Her answer seemed to make him a tad uncomfortable, and she hoped he knew she was kidding for now. She hoped she knew that for sure. She didn't. A sudden thought hit her.  
  
"Don't you ever watch me?" she asked. Andy smiled.   
  
"That's different." He muttered in a purposely-childlike manner. Julia sighed unnoticibly with relief.   
  
"How come?" she said playfully.   
  
Andy rolled his eyes. "'Cause you're pretty."   
  
She laughed once and smiled at him, patting down a tuft of sleep-disorientated hair. "You're pretty too."  
  
Andy laughed in a cute, emasculated, embarrassed way that made Julia smile.   
  
"I was just thinking about that, actually." She continued matter-of-factly.   
  
Andy smirked. "Well, I do have a face of plastic."  
  
Julia smiled to herself.   
  
Julia thought that sometimes it was marvelous how close he really was.   
  
She smoothed the hair back from his face.  
  
"So. What were you dreaming about."  
  
Dreams:  
  
Of Sirens   
  
The dream was the same one he'd been having for the last few months on random; he began to recognize the characters. A small, thin boy with black hair and a scar on his bare back, and eyes that shone shallowly like opals. A woman with unnaturally red hair that hung just below the fourth button of her almost pilgrim-like gray dress and a face that was long and pale like a ghost. Two dogs the color of shifting rain, and they did shift and sway angrily, and they did seem to strike silent lightening under the sinuous muscles in their backs.   
  
It wasn't a chase dream, not really. They rarely were for Andy. Andy hadn't discovered if the characters of this particular apparition were bad or good, the dream hadn't lasted long enough. He almost always had lucid dreams, and he usually let the dream run it's course, or-- like this one-- it would keep coming back.   
  
Julia sometimes woke him. The woman would be shaking him in his dream, and then he'd open his eyes and see his sleepy, worried wife leaning over him, shaking him gently. But Andy didn't think that the shaking was a part of the dream if it weren't happening in real life. He thought that if he could just make it though the whole dream, he could shake it off. He had told Julia this and she had shaken her head emphatically.  
  
"I can't just lay there next to you while you're like that, Andy, I'm sorry. I can't. I'm sorry. That's morbid."  
  
They'd gone back to sleep that night, his arms huddled around her reassuringly. He knew that sometimes the dreams upset her. He knew that Julia heard what were literally horror stories about what he went through every night, and she was mortified. He knew she didn't dream. But it's not like she thinks.   
  
It was intriguing and terrifying each time, and yes, sometimes the dreams were upsetting, but more often they were just childish and exciting. It was like being Indiana Jones every single night. It was like conquering some force that wasn't really putting anyone in danger, but it wasn't really Andy playing against Andy, either. It was full-proof.   
  
So tonight he's decided to play.   
  
He's back at the same spot he's always at: it's raining. He's on a dirt road. The sky is black, but bleeding red in spots. Flat terrain. He can see for miles, but the only thing to see is this woman, standing three feet in front of him, and his boy standing three feet in back. The dogs are menacingly vigilant, but they don't move, and suddenly, there is a new sound ... the sound of Sirens. Sirens and   
  
He looks up and the woman's mouth is open, eyes are wide open. And there's nothing inside. Nothing inside her, it's just dark, it's just a thousand million miles of things he can't see, and that could be anything, and he can't tell if that's where the Sirens are coming from but they're getting louder ...   
  
Out of the corner of his eye Andy sees dark hair flying forward ... he hears the ripping, wrenching sound of metal on metal, metal on concrete... he sees lights in the sky, red lights rippling through rain-colored fur ...  
  
Something sharp   
  
(where is it can't see it where is)   
  
straight into his chest. He smells the smell of the operating room, of blood and metal and baby powder, of sharp, cold copper, of disappointment and desperation and guilt. It floods his mouth like a thousand dirty pennies, like old sex, like a car crash on a rainy road in the middle of the night.  
  
For the first time in his life Andy wants to wake up. Tries to wake up. For the first time in his life Andy wants to wake up, tries to wake up.   
  
For the first time in his life Andy can't wake up.  
  
Of course it only lasts a few seconds; a dream is just a dream, no matter what or when or who or how. But for a few seconds it's only that coppery dissolution, that operating room desperation, and a kind of fuddled, bleary belief that he is never waking up.  
  
When his eyes finally do open; open for real, he can hear his own breathing without feeling the air. He sits up in bed, swings his legs over the side of the bed, catches a view of the clock. Almost four. He pants heavily; he leans over and puts his head between his legs like he's supposed to. It's never been like this.  
  
He watches the stubble imperfections of the carpet until he stops wincing at every pound of his heart. He rests his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands as he counts to fifty.   
  
He wonders vaguely why Julia hasn't asked him if he's all right, why she hasn't put her cool hand on his back, why she hasn't pressed a glass of water into his hand or a kiss against his forehead. He wonders vaguely.   
  
For a moment, he actually forgets why she won't.   
  
He's checking the clock again before he can think.   
  
It's four in the morning and all he wants is a bed that isn't cold.  
  
It's four in the morning and all he wants is a bed that isn't empty.  
  
It's four in the morning and he just fell asleep at three. And this is the first time he's slept for a solid hour for days. This is the first time he's slept in his bed for days but that doesn't matter.   
  
Not much really does.   
  
There are children sleeping in the next room. He knows that they've been able to sleep at night for three days now. For Andy it has been a week. And a week since she died. Why should he be slower than his eight-year-old daughter? Than is fifteen-year-old son? Don't they dream?  
  
He wonders and immediately takes it back. No, they don't. And if they do, he doesn't want to think about it.   
  
Andy has forgotten about the pump of his heart, so he knows this means he is calm again. He holds his hand up in front of his face and watches it shake like an old man's, but he knows that this is only residual. He also knows that he really should drink a glass of water, but better than that he knows that he doesn't want to get up.  
  
So he lies back down, concentrating on his breathing and not on the impending tears in his throat and chest. That's not so hard anymore. They've been there, constantly for the last week. He hasn't spent a moment without knowing they are there, and sometimes he indulges in them. Oh, sometimes he does. Usually when he's alone, but not now. Now just seems too creepy. He doesn't want to break the silence, so he swallows them and he breathes quietly and consciously.  
  
It's funny. He doesn't fear the return of the dreams. He never has. He just doesn't. Andy knows. Some things are inevitable. Some things just come around.   
  
And some things are punishment.   
  
Andy knows. He knows that it's okay. That no matter what, he wakes up.   
  
And if he doesn't, that's okay, too. 


End file.
